Garth Brooks let the cat out of the bag early with a social media announcement last week that he’ll be headlining the 2018 Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio. Yet he didn’t reveal his co-headliners: He’ll be joined at the top of the three-day spring event by Keith Urban and Florida Georgia Line, along with dozens of other country, Americana and classic-rock acts.
Next year’s lineup, announced today by promoter Goldenvoice, also includes Kacey Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini, Kenny Rogers, Brett Young, Tanya Tucker, Ronnie Milsap, Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real, Cody Jinks and veteran Canadian folk-rocker Gordon Lightfoot.
Stagecoach is slated to run April 27 to 29 at the Empire Polo Field.
“We are doubling down on everything next year,” said Goldenvoice director of festival talent Stacy Vee, who selects the acts that play what has become the largest country music festival in the world. This year attendance totaled 225,000, with an attendance cap of 75,000 festival-goers per day.
Vee two-stepped around a question of whether that cap would be raised for 2018, as it was this year for Stagecoach’s older sibling Coachella, which bumped maximum daily attendance from 99,000 to 125,000 after Goldenvoice secured more property surrounding the festival site and expanded the concert grounds.